Haunting Secrets
by Crimson and Chrome 42
Summary: Re-post. When Captain Bridger's niece comes aboard for a visit, what secrets will she bring with her? Will they spell doom for the crew of the seaQuest? Ratings may change later. Disclaimers implied.
1. Chapter 1

Haunting Secrets

_**By Crimson & Chrome 42**_

_**Disclaimer—I don't own seaQuest or any of its related characters or anything else that you might find familiar. I'm just borrowing them—so don't sue; I doubt you'd win.**_

Chapter 1

~ I'm so scared that the way that I feel is written all over my face ~

17-year-old Lucas Walenczeck sat hunched over a microscope in his quarters, he shared with his best friend, Ben Kreig, viewing slides that he had just prepared. He'd been up for 15 hours straight, and he hadn't eaten a bite of food since he'd started his research.

He sat up smiling. His other best friend, Alexia Carson's smiling face appeared in his mind. She was the one singing. She'd given him the CD after her last singing competition. The song she was singing summed up how he felt about her.

His smile widened as remembered Captain Bridger's 16-year-old niece.

~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~

Alexia was standing in the cockpit of a small sub. She was going to visit her Uncle Nate, on the SeaQuest, along with all of her friends. Well, actually, she was going to surprise Lucas and Ben; Uncle Nate said they were very lonely.

Before she knew it, Alexia was docking on the SeaQuest. 'That didn't take long', she thought, surprised.

Her uncle was there to greet her, "Hi Alex! Have a nice trip?" he asked cheerfully.

"Y…" she was cut off by a loud squeal.

"Alex!" Ben Kreig shouted running up to her.

Laughing at him she said, "Hi Ben! How goes it?"

Commander Ford came up before he could answer her. "Hi Alex, was your trip ok?" he asked.

"Yep! It didn't take as long as usual." She replied.

"Wait a sec; did everybody know that you were coming?" Ben asked indignantly.

"No, Lucas doesn't know." Alexia replied.

"Oh, like that's so much better! How long are you staying?"

"I don't know yet. I have all the time in the world."

"Really?"

"Yep."

"Alex, would you go check up on Lucas, please?" her uncle asked.

"Sure! Where is he?" she asked.

"Uh, he's in his quarters, I think." He answered. He turned to Ben, "I know you're happy to see Alex and want to visit with her, but you're still on duty. There will be time for that later since she'll be staying in you guys' room."

"Really?" Ben asked, definitely cheered up at this news.

"Uh, guys, I hat to do this, but how're you gonna fit another bed in there?" Alexia asked.

"Already taken care of. How do you feel about your old camping cot?" Captain Bridger asked.

"I was wondering where that went! Next time I try to go see Greg, I'm gonna have call you first." Alex said.

"Alex, you don't have to sleep on that cot, you can have my bed."

"Ben, get back to work, please." Captain Bridger said pleadingly. Ben got to work, as he was told. Bridger turned to look at Alex. She threw up her hands; "I'm going! I'm going!" she said.

~~~*~~~

When Alexia got to Lucas' and Ben's quarters she knocked.

"C'mon in!" Lucas said through the door. He supposed that it was someone coming to make sure he'd eaten.

Alex walked into the room; he didn't hear her coma in. She walked over to him, lean over his shoulder and said, "What'cha workin' on?"

"Lexi!" Lucas said, turning around to look at her. "What are you doing here?"

"Apparently interrupting everybody's work." She replied.

"Huh?"

"Never mind, so have you eaten?"

"Not in 15 hours."

"Dad-gum-it! I hopin' you'd eaten since I had."

"You haven't eaten?"

"Not since breakfast yesterday."

"C'mon you're going to eat. That's longer than I've ever gone without food. You must be starving!"

"Not really, no."

"Well, you're eating anyway."

~~~*~~~

When Alexia and Lucas got to the mess hall, they could feel people's eyes on them. Lucas was hungrier than he thought.

When Lucas went back for seconds, Nathan came over to her, "How in the world did you get Lucas to eat?" he asked in amazement.

"I told him how long it'd been since I'd eaten." She replied absently.

"And how long had it been since you'd eaten?"

"Breakfast, yesterday."

"What!"

"Sorry, but I didn't exactly have time to eat. There were more important things to be care of."

"Oh, really? Like what?"

"Yeah, like what?" Lucas said, he's come back, and his plate was overflowing with food.

"Connor." Alex said simply. She knew her uncle would know what she meant, without explaining. Lucas, on the other hand, was a different story.

"Connor?" he repeated. He looked questioningly at from Alex to the Captain and back again. He did not get an answer, however. Nathan and Alexia pretended not to notice.

~~~*~~~

After awhile Alex and Lucas were both finished with their food. They got up to leave. In the hall, they ran into somebody.

"So Lucas, who's your friend?" the guy asked, looking at Alex.

"When did you guys get new crew members?" Alex asked.

"Last month." Lucas said through gritted teeth.

"So, what's your name?" the asked.

"Alex."

"Well, Alex. Would you like to go out with me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"'Cause I've I got a boyfriend." Alexia said. Commander Ford came up to them.

"Get to work Anderson." He said firmly.

"Yes, sir." Anderson said, with one last look at Alex and Lucas.

After Anderson and Ford left, Lucas asked. "When'd you get a boyfriend?"

"I didn't. I just told 'im that." Lexi said.

"If you say so. Where're you staying?" By this time they had reached Lucas's cabin, he opened the door and his question was answered. Alexia's camping cot was set up in the corner of the room, with Ben lying on it.

"Now I see why you like this cot so much." Ben said. "It's really comfortable.

"You're staying here?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah, you should be lonely more often, if I find a piece of my missing camping equipment."

"Huh?"

"Forget it." Ben said.

"What do you 2 know that I don't?" Lucas said suspiciously.

"Nothing." They said together.

"Ben…" he said in one of those 'I don't believe you' voices.

Lexi walked over to Ben and whispered, "So Uncle Nate told ya, huh?"

"Yeah."

"What did he tell you?"

"The part about the Boy Scouts."

"What are you 2 talking about?" Lucas asked.

She let out a sigh of relief. "Good, he didn't tell you everything."

"There's more?"

"Yeah, lot's more.'

"What?"

"Forget it. Now, get off my cot."

"Ahhh, c'mon," Ben whined, "let me sleep on it. Please?"

"No."

"No."

"Please?" he asked, sticking out his bottom lip in a puppy dog pout.

~~~*~~~ The Middle of the Night ~~~*~~~

(Dream Sequence)

Snap! The flash went off on the camera.

"(Giggle) Bri, don't do that! You know I hate having my picture taken."

"C'mon, Lexi, I've got to have a picture of you for my vacation."

"Well now you've got one. So no more pictures, deal?"

"Deal."

"Hi Hunter! What are you doing here?"

"You know very well what I'm doing here." Hunter snapped.

Alex set up fast. Sweat was pouring off her body and she was shaking.

* * *

_**A.N. I realize that Captain Bridger more than likely wouldn't let his niece sleep in a room with two guys, but since this is fiction and I'm the writer, everyone is just going to have to deal with it. Besides It's kinda important to the plot. Also, I am aware that it's very unlikely that Alexia would be allowed onto the ship for an extended period of time, but again, I am the writer and I can do whatever I like. Oh, and Alex looks older than she really is, so I hope that explains the complaint about fully grown man hitting on a 16-year-old girl, but then again, you find all kinds.**_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Alex couldn't get back to sleep, so she got up, very quietly dressed, and slipped out of the tiny quarters. Once she was outside the cabin with the door safely closed, she took a deep breath to steady herself. She wasn't going to allow herself to cry, or at least she was going to find somewhere private to do it.

Alex started walking. She didn't know where she was going, but she knew she had to go somewhere.

_**I'm not sure I can handle this anymore, **_Alex thought to herself._**It's getting to be too much; I can't even go to sleep without him invading my dreams. I can't get away from him when I'm awake or asleep.**_

Alex looked up and noticed that she was in front of a room she had never seen before. She didn't even know it was on the ship. _**Wow! This tub seems have more secrets than I do!**_ She decided to investigate, so she slipped quietly into the mysterious room.

Alex looked around the room; it looked like any ordinary unoccupied quarters. Bed, closet, the usual suspects were all there.

Alex sighed and collapsed onto the naked bed. She curled up into a tight ball. She closed her eyes and cried.

~~~*~~~

He watched her walk into the room. He watched her take in the surroundings. He watched her sigh and curl up on the bed. He watched her cry.

He felt a small tug at his heart. He pushed the feeling away. He had a job to do.

He watched her drift off to sleep.

This was going to be easier than he had expected.

His boss had warned him that this girl was very important, and he had to follow everything exactly according to plan.

He slipped out of the shadows of the closet. He pulled a vile out of his pocket. The clear liquid looked completely harmless. _"Looked"_ being the operative word in that sentence. He patted his other pockets, looking for something. He patted one particular pocket again, then slipped his hand into it and pulled out what it was he was searching for. A medium sized syringe with a very large needle gripped delicately in his hand. The light caught the metallic needle; the point glinted in the dim light.

He stuck the tip of the needle in the top of the vile of clear liquid and pushed the drum of the syringe. The clear liquid filled the barrel.

Once he had the desired amount he slid the needle out of the vile and slipped the vile back into his pocket. He thumped the barrel of the syringe of the needle to make sure there were no air bubbles in it; it wouldn't do to kill the kid before the plan could proceed.

After he was quite sure there were no bubbles in the syringe, he slunk over to the girl's sleeping form. He shifted her head so that he could open her mouth. Praying she wouldn't wake up he forced her mouth open and slid the needle tip into her mouth and released the penned up liquid, she swallowed half of it involuntarily. The other half he injected into her tongue. She tensed for a moment.

Satisfied that he'd done his job so far, he put her back into her curled up position and silently crept out of the room, with one last look at the sleeping girl on the naked bed.

* * *

_**A.N. Okay, so I've had a complaint about the frequent references to the "naked bed", so, I'm going to address it: This is not only a description of the bed on which she sleeps, but also a metaphor for Alexia's emotional state at the time, she's vulnerable. I've also had a complaint about her not waking up when the needle is inserted into her tongue, well, the only explanation I have for this is: you're be amazed at the things you can sleep through when you're exhausted.**_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Captain Bridger, do you know where Alex is?" Lucas asked the Captain of the vessel, just as he'd been asking everyone he'd come across in the halls.

"No, if anyone would know, I would think it would be _you_." The girl's uncle answered the boy, surprised. "Did you ask Ben? Maybe she's with him."

Lucas shook his head. "I already asked him, she's not with him, nor does he know where she is. I've looked everywhere I know to look, and asked everyone I've seen. Nobody knows where she is!" Lucas was beginning to panic— although he didn't know why. He just had a bad feeling that something horrible had happened to Alex.

The shaken manner in which Lucas had asked where Alex was had alerted Captain Bridger. Alex had come aboard for some R&R and to help cheer up the crew a little, but if he knew his niece as well as he thought he did, he knew that she wouldn't disappear the next day. She would at least wait a couple of days before going off by herself… Unless…

He gave the bridge over to Commander Ford and told Lucas to follow him.

"Captain…" Lucas began.

"When was the last time you saw Alex?"

"Um… Last night, we stayed up late, catching up, we all fell asleep sometime after 2."

"When did you first notice she was missing?"

"Sometime after breakfast, she wasn't there when we got up this morning, but we just figured she'd already left for breakfast."

~~~*~~~

The bed was wringing with her sweat. She was very hot—very, very hot, heat was radiating off her body. Alex roughly tossed on the bare mattress, as if she were trying to get away from something pursuing her. She was breathing heavily.

She started to shiver and shake. The shivering rapidly increased. Then, she began to convulse, violently. Her eyes flew open, her mouth gaping; but instead of a scream, she began to choke.

She fell off the bed, still seizing. She caught the corner edge of the nightstand on her temple on the way down.

~~~*~~~

Captain Bridger and Lucas were passing the empty section of the crew quarters when they heard noise coming from one of the unoccupied rooms.

It sounded as if a fight was in progress. The looked at each other a moment then sprinted to the door of the room.

Expecting to meet with obstruction, Bridger put his shoulder into it.

They burst into the room.

Slightly disoriented by the lack of resistance, Captain Bridger stopped short just inside the doorway. Lucas ran into his back.

There was a sharp intake of breath and Nathan Bridger ran to his still violently convulsing and choking niece, leaving Lucas to wonder for a split-second for what the sharp intake of breath was.

With Bridger no longer blocking his view, Lucas now saw why. Alex was having a seizure, a very brutal seizure, at that. Blood was pouring from her left temple and he could hear her choking. He could almost _see_ the heat radiating from her body.

Lucas stood there for a moment, feeling helpless, and caught completely off-guard.

"Go… get… KRISTEN!" Bridger grunted, struggling to keep Alex's head up so she wouldn't swallow her tongue.

It took a nano-second for Lucas's brain to relay this message to his body—the comm wasn't activated in the unoccupied quarters— and he was off and running.

* * *

_**A.N. Whoa! Bet you thought that I'd forgotten about this fic, well, you're partly correct. I'd forgotten that I'd written another chapter already. I've got major writer's block, so, for those of you out there who are still reading this, God bless you! I shall attempt to do better.**_


End file.
